The UK has been providing basic training to Ukraine's combat air pilots as a contribution to the international Air Force Capability Coalition for Ukraine

The first cohort of Ukrainian pilots to receive training from the Royal Air Force are now learning to fly F-16 fighter jets in Denmark, having completed a basic programme of training in the UK.

The RAF began delivering flying and English language training in August as part of the UK contribution to the international Air Force Capability Coalition for Ukraine, which sees allies and partners working together to bolster Ukraine’s air capabilities.

The group was formed of six experienced Ukrainian combat fighter pilots who received aviation-specific English language training to increase their ability to engage with coalition training and support.

A further ten Ukrainian trainee pilots took part in the language training and remain in the UK to continue with practical basic flight training, as well as to learn important skills such as aviation medicine and centrifuge training.

    • 🐑🇸 🇭 🇪 🇪 🇵 🇱 🇪🐑@lemmy.worldEnglish
      482·
      11 months ago

      Flying actually requires a lot of training because if the person flying dies all that training was for nothing and an expensive jet is lost to boot.

      It’s one of those professions where it’s just not financially feasible to half ass it (for the ones funding)

      • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        11 months ago

        I’m not with that person, but I’m surprised ‘learning English’ was repeated by a journo a couple of times with Ukraine probably having lots of speakers due to long eurointegration talks, many of them working in EU or online. That’s a specific field, and you need a close to zero response time like a native, but yet, it’s put on the same level as training them as military pilots and it indeed sounded off. It makes me think they didn’t have many info on interesting specifics of how these pilots learnt in a flight school and tried to fill a word counter, or had a hangover, or were an AI.

        • kerrigan778@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          11 months ago

          The trainees were already experienced pilots in Ukrainian aircraft though, they couldn’t just pick from a giant pool of people that already knew English

      • geophysicistEnglish
        711·
        11 months ago

        As of 2 days ago (at least when it became publicly known), there are f16s being flown by Ukrainians in Ukraine. So clearly other groups could train faster

        Edit: adding more info below

        A Danish military analyst who works for their military and specialists in the Ukraine war hypotheses that f16s is the most likely reason for the multiple Russian fighter planes shot down in recent days

        https://youtu.be/-NdIoseN6HM?si=__O7Et_i6pu9MXkK

        And Ukraine war update channels are starting to share the news

        https://youtu.be/M_uhfHnuKgw?si=Xy4_s0FWKk_AGMb6

        Also ISW published this 2 weeks ago:

        Umerov also announced on December 9 that Ukraine will soon receive F-16 fighter jets and that Ukraine is already preparing infrastructure for the jets’ arrival.[32]

        https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-9-2023

        And Newsweek reported weeks ago that the first batch of 5 f16s from the Netherlands had already arrived at the training centre in Romania, and that the f16s from Belgium would arrive in Ukraine in march or April

        https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-receives-major-update-f-16s-1841683

        The Netherlands it seems has fast tracked the process, to make sure the f16s are delivered before the new far right leader gets into power after winning the recent Dutch election